Local Food Waste Solutions

One theme I keep returning to on this blog is food insecurity in the US and the millions of tons of food that goes to waste every year. Basically 7.5 pounds of food per day gets tossed for every hungry American. I’ve already highlighted a few agencies that are taking new and innovative steps toward saving that food to feed the hungry and today I’m happy to add a local agency to that list.

The Society of St. Andrew has taken a page from the history books and has implemented gleaning throughout the area, and around the nation. Gleaning is the practice of collecting the fallen, forgotten or unwanted produce in the field, produce that is perfectly good but, for whatever reason, was left unharvested by the farmer. In biblical times gleaners were the poor themselves; today in KC The Society sends out crews of regular folk, volunteers mostly, to harvest the unwanted bounty that would otherwise rot in the field. The gleaned harvest is then distributed to multiple agencies that serve the poor.